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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

4-7-10 Idea Post

Biology

-A natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.

-The term was introduced independently by Karl Friedrich Burdach, Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck between 1800 and 1802 AD. It is inspired by the Greek word bios (life) and the suffix logia (study of).

Above is a diagram created by Ernst Haeckel called The Tree of Life
wikipedia.com

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Recently I have been thinking more about my collections of animal assortments (if you will), inspired by the work on the very top floor of the Anderson Gallery. I was jealous of the bug collection(s) and wonder if the person/people collected or ordered the bugs. The preservation and presentation wasn't top notch, but was impressive overall.

Collections (particularly of animals) and their presentation are art within themselves, but they are not appreciated in the same way 'art labeled' works are- they're given museum quality appreciation. I'm not sure why I have such an interest in this quality, but I can guess.

The Naturalist Center (Leesburg, VA) is only down the street from where I grew up in Northern Virginia. It is the biggest interactive collection of natural history objects I have ever encountered. They have over 36,000 hands-on collection objects including skeletons, furs, animal preservations, bugs, shells, etc. They are a branch of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

One day I aspire to have a fraction of this type of collection and display within my own house.



^^The Naturalist Center in Leesburg, Va^^

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